In Bill Watterson’s iconic newspaper comic Calvin & Hobbes, there is the occasional mention of Calvin’s involvement in a “noodle incident”. Readers are never given any details about what the incident entails, but they know it was something bad and their mind is left to fill in the details of what happened. Bill Watterson has stated that this is because nothing he came up with would ever live up to the expectations of what readers imagined the incident to be. The incident can be infinitely ridiculous because it is never tethered by an actual explanation.
The human brain is remarkably good at filling in the gaps when information is missing. In Gestalt psychology this is referred to as the Law of Closure. If one has ever seen an optical illusion where their mind added dots, squares, or colors because of some wavy lines and shapes, that’s a result of the image tripping up the brain’s receptors and the brain trying to compensate. It’s why a bunch of perforated lines can still be instantly interpreted as a shape despite missing half of it, because the brain is working to fill in the missing information from the breaks in the pattern.
This is an effective technique that filmmakers have utilized over the years. Those who have watched the movie Pulp Fiction are never shown what is inside Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase. When opened, a light emits from the briefcase, but the movie never reveals what’s inside. Some theories have claimed that it contains Marcellus Wallace’s soul based on convoluted (albeit intriguing) logic. Rather, it’s left unknown because the MacGuffin, the ultimately irrelevant object that drives the plot forward, is more interesting when people can make up theories that it contains a small nuclear bomb or Elvis’ gold suit from True Romance.
The fact that this reads as a rectangle is because of the Gestalt psychology Law of Closure.
In the movie Airplane!, it’s never revealed what happened in the incident that led to Ted Striker’s fear of flying and drinking problem, but it can be assumed that it was a complete and utter catastrophe. Who is this imposing father figure that has Cameron so terrified in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off? He sounds really scary and he sure has a nice car, but the viewers are left wondering how frightening this person really is. When the Joker asks various characters if they want to know how he got his mouth scars in The Dark Knight, everybody in the audience mentally answers with a “Yeah, probably.” The story of his scars changes with every telling, so it’s never truly known how he did in fact get those scars, but it can be assumed that it was a thoroughly unenjoyable experience.
Sometimes this invoking of the Law of Closure is used for world-building as well as fostering intrigue. In the original Star Wars, old stories are mentioned constantly, full of made-up words like “womp rats” and “Kessel Run”. There’s a reference to some “clone wars” that happened a hundred generations ago. In the initial trilogy, these were just bits of unexplained lore, sprinkled in for added flavor, left up to the viewers consider how cool a “clone war” sounds and what one might consist of. It was only until the subsequent novelizations, comics, and infinite number of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs that the gaps were filled in with concrete. Whether that ruins the magic or not (yes) is subjective (it does). Viewers aren’t even shown Darth Vader’s face until the final moments of Return of the Jedi, because Darth Vader is a scary dude, and he’s a lot scarier if people don’t think “this guy looks kinda dumb” when the helmet’s off.
That very thought has ruined a good many horror movies. How can the big bad be terrifying if it looks like bad effects or like just some normal guy? That’s why some horror directors opt not to show the personification of evil at all. For instance, in The Blair Witch Project, the kids run around the same square mile of woods talking about how scared they are, and viewers are never shown any witches, Blair or otherwise. In Ringu, the original Japanese horror film that The Ring is a remake of, the creepy TV ghost girl’s face is always concealed by her long hair (aside from an extreme close-up of her eye towards the end). In John Carpenter’s horror classic The Thing, viewers never see the creature’s original form, just the various horrific mutations that it becomes, because what should a shape-shifter look like anyway? In the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs, the viewer never actually gets to see what the alien invaders look like, though they do learn by the end of the film that they are hurt by water despite the fact they chose to attempt to invade a planet that is comprised of 71% water.
Canadian independent horror film Pontypool is an intriguing example of viewers hearing, but not being shown, what’s happening for maximum dramatic effect. The movie takes place entirely in a radio station, where a shock jock DJ ends up inadvertently breaking the story of a zombie attack. The early stages of the zombie attack are all heard through the broadcast from the station’s helicopter reporter as he gives a report on it as it occurs. One wouldn’t think it but scenes comprised of just DJ Grant’s horrified face while he and the viewer listens to the unfortunate reporter describe the situation as it evolves makes for some really gripping scenes.
Another thing that movies frequently leave to the viewers’ imaginations is violence. Those who have not immersed themselves in the series may not know this, but despite the series’ later installments being known for their intense violence and focus on gory deaths, the very first film in the Saw franchise features almost no on-screen violence whatsoever. A lot of movies would rather the viewer imagine the horrific violence rather than explicitly showing it, either because it makes the movie easier for audiences to stomach, or because letting the viewer’s mind extrapolate makes it that much more horrific.
The question of whether an unknown-unknown is scarier than a known-unknown is both subjective and dependent on how adept the filmmaker is at generating suspense and tension. It may also depend on how solid the design for the monster is, or how hyped-up the reveal is. Some things just never live up to the legend because a legend’s home is primarily in the mind. Some folks say that you should never meet your heroes, but perhaps it’s also accurate to say that you probably never want to meet the monster that is relentlessly stalking you in an abandoned facility.
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